Office: Old Fine Arts Building, Room 151 Email: bmacdonald@wtamu.edu Phone: 806-651-2456
Professional Profile
Dr. MacDonald joined WTAMU in 2008 as head of the Department of English, Philosophy and Modern Languages and as a professor of English. She received a B.A. in English and a B.A. in psychology from California State University in Sacramento in 1978 and an M.A. in American studies from the University of Nottingham, England in 1979. She received an M.A. (1983) and Ph.D. (1988) in American literature from Yale University.
Teaching and Related Service
Dr. MacDonald teaches a wide range of American literature, and specializes in literature of the American West. In addition to courses on campus, Dr. MacDonald also offers onsite ranch courses on the literature, culture and history of the American ranching west.
Research and Creative Activity
Dr. MacDonald is the author of Henry James’s Italian Hours and has published articles on late 19th century authors Henry James, Hamlin Garland, and William Dean Howells, as well as on 20th century Western writers, Gretel Ehrlich, Wallace Stegner and William Kittredge. She has been a participant in NEH seminars, a recipient of teaching awards and research grants, and on the executive council for the Western Literature Association. She will be co-president of the Western Literature Association in 2011. Dr. MacDonald’s current research focuses on the literary and cultural influence of the western historian, Frederick Jackson Turner, with additional emphasis on Emerson and William James.
